Malopolskie, Poland Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland Wytwórnia Filmów Fabularnych, Lódz, Lódzkie, Poland (studio) Soundtrack "Walc e-moll" (Frédéric Chopin) by Krystian Zimmermann "Staropolskim obyczajem" (J. Odrowaz, A. Skorupka, W. Kruszynski) by Zofia & Zbigniew Framer Reception Critical response Camera Buff received mixed reviews. In his review in The New York Times, Vincent Canby argued that much of the film "means to be uproariously emotional, but the events we see seldom justify all the overwrought reactions. Mr. Kieślowski also appears to suggest that art—in this case movie making—must be a process by which the artist consumes the raw materials of his experience and then spits them out as finished art, leaving the people around him in the state of gnawed beef bones. This is a vast oversimplification of the creative process and is probably only applicable, really, to the second-rater." Canby noted, however, that the film was "exuberantly acted by a good cast headed by Mr. Stuhr." Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader wrote about the film "Suffused with Kieslowski's dry wit and intelligence, this early feature provides an excellent introduction to his work." On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Camera Buff has an approval rating of 90% based on 10 reviews, with an average score of 7.30/10. Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi (director of the Lodz Film School when Kieslowski was his deputy director) explains that there was a period before the success of Camera Buff outside Poland when Kieślowski's work was considered inappropriate to travel internationally. Zanussi argues that Kieślowski's work always had universal appeal, and that the praise or scorn seemed, to Zanussi, to be arbitrary. For example, after Kieślowski gained acclaim for films he made in the West — The Double Life of Veronique and the Three Colors Trilogy — his earlier films, which had been largely damned by western reviewers and critics, were suddenly praised as a collective body. Awards and nominations 1979 Polish Film Festival Golden Lion Award (Krzysztof Kieślowski) Won 1979 Polish Film Festival Best Actor Award (Jerzy Stuhr) Won 1979 Moscow International Film Festival FIPRESCI Prize (Krzysztof Kieślowski) Won 1979 Moscow International Film Festival Golden Prize (Krzysztof Kieślowski) Won 1980 Berlin International Film Festival Interfilm Award, Otto Dibelius Film Award (Krzysztof Kieślowski) Won 1980 Chicago International Film Festival Golden Hugo (Krzysztof Kieślowski) Won References External links Academic study on Camera Buff 1979 films 1979 drama films Polish drama films 1970s Polish-language films Films about filmmaking